Fabrication and Characterization of Calcium-Phosphate Lipid System for Potential Dental Application

Abstract

Lipid has been widely studied as a vehicle and loading vector, but there have been no reports of any such related application in the dental field. The purpose of this research was to fabricate and characterize a nano-size calcium-phosphate lipid (CL) system as a potential vehicle in dental regeneration study, wherein the biocompatibility with dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) was evaluated. The effect of CL on DPSCs proliferation was analyzed by a CCK-8 assay, and the anti-inflammatory effect was investigated by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Moreover, the effect of CL on odontogenic differentiation of inflamed DPSCs (iDPSCs) was studied by Alizarin red staining, tissue-non-specific alkaline phosphatase (TNAP) staining, qPCR, and western blot analyses. The results of this study showed that CL did not affect the proliferation of DPSCs, it down-regulated the inflammatory-associated markers (<i>IL-1</i>β<i>, IL-6, TNF-</i>α<i>, COX-2</i>) of DPSCs treated with <i>Escherichia coli</i> lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and enhanced the <i>in-vitro</i> odontogenic differentiation potential of iDPSCs. This novel biomaterial has a broad application prospect for its bioactivity and flexible physical property, and thus represents a promising pulpal regeneration material.